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Friday, January 24, 2014

I am Considering Boycotting ABC.

Good morning friends! I am reporting to you from home for now because some sort of ice/sleet craziness has taken over Houston, so I am going into work a bit later. Can't we just get real snow?? Anyway.

The ABC boycott...let me start at the beginning. After two failed attempts at self-studying for the CPA exam I decided to go ahead and sign up for a CPA review course. I am really tired of messing around with all this non-sense, I finished my classes in December of 2012. So I decided to take the best class around, Becker, with the biggest price tag and guaranteed passing scores. Awesome. My options for the class were Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6pm to 10pm, or Saturday 8-5. I was not about to have most of my Saturdays ripped away from me for half a year, so I opted for Monday and Wednesday. Long story short, my schedule is now crammed and I am at work all day, then school, and then non-school days I am working on the homework. Needless to say, my TV time has been diminished to almost nothing. It is so very sad.

My one guilty pleasure has been The Bachelor/Bachelorette. I LOVE to tweet along with the show, recap the episode on my blog, etc. It is especially bumming me out because it seems that several blogs I peruse are recapping this season and I just want to participate with them so badly!! Monday nights are school nights so I can't watch live, and we axed the cable several months ago (which generally I am happy we did) so we have no DVR capabilities. It hasn't ever been an issue, the episode is on Hulu the next day or online.

WRONG.

Apparently this January ABC made the cruel decision to not allow non cable subscribers to view online content until 8 days (?!) after it airs. I learned this at the worst possible time, as it was Saturday afternoon after an exhausting week and spending most of the day doing stupid homework. When I saw that I was going to be shut out, I wanted more than anything to reach into my computer to ABC and destroy something they love. You know, to get even. #dramatic
In all seriousness though, I was mad.

verify to watch..?!

oh heeeeeell no.

I'd like to preface this rant by making it aware that I know I am sounding like an entitled 21st century brat, and ABC owes me nothing beyond what they are giving me. That being said:

Why?!?! First of all, did I miss the memo where you became a cable only network?? You are not HBO, for crying out loud. You come on TV for free with my $10 antenna, so I am misunderstanding the preference you are giving cable subscribers.

If you want to have a delay until we can watch it, fine if that makes you feel better, but 8 days is insane. You will be forcing those who miss one show to be perpetually a week behind and forced to only watch online for the remainder of the season. Example, I missed the 2nd episode of Juan-Pablo and I couldn't watch it until Tuesday after the third episode aired. Well I was home (thanks, MLKJr) the night of the third episode so I watched it, and now watching the second episode is pointless unless I really want to see the story unfold with the gal crying in the bathroom saying she hopes Juan-Pab dies. Yikes. But yeah, now that I have gaps in the episodes, I am a good 70% not even into this season whatsoever. Don't they want us to watch their shows?!

In a perfectly logical word, cable subscribers have little to no need to watch anything online. When I had cable, I DVRed everything I cared to watch, or it was on the OnDemand feature. Going online to watch something on my small laptop screen was never ever necessary, and definitely not preferred. The only reason I bothered to do so the other day is because I don't have cable and I was a big-ish fan of the show. So your multi-million dollar infrastructure of online viewing is going to sit largely un-utilized. Way to go.

This is encouraging theft. I get it that everyone tries to save a buck and shares passwords to accounts and yadda yadda yadda. I don't agree with this method, the root of it is quite dishonest. But I'll have you know that while I was gabbing around town about my frustration with this new system they have going I was offered cable log in infos by three different people. While I have yet to take up any offers, this is what ends up happening. Is this what you want, ABC?

So because of this new frustration, I am not even bothering with The Bachelor this season. Sorry, not sorry. The season already seems like a snooze-fest, and Juan Pablo, while good looking and all, I don't feel any connection to him in so far as to caring if he finds his manufactured for tv true love. I am going to have a hard time boycotting Super Fun Night and Shark Tank though. I do love those two a lot.

Once I cooled down, I wanted to get to the bottom of this insanity, and I guess I get it. Cable companies are losing subscribers in droves, so they are probably cutting any and all deals with networks to give them an edge. Plus ABC/Disney owns several cable networks, so they are all in cahoots. Sadly, you just have to follow the dollars. Shows that used to be up on Hulu Plus a day later are not even available weeks later. Ahem, Kroll Show. I don't know what the answer is. Actually I do, either pony up the dough for cable, or find another hobby. Option two would probably make the world a better place, lol.

7 comments:

so after 8 days of the show viewing you can then view it even if your cable company isnt listed. we have mediacom and its not listed and i've send the email twice and no luck. so i guess it's no bachelor for me b/c i work when its on. oh well. there's other stuff you can watch. i think abc family is doing the same thing though just like abc which sucks. and if i had dvr it would make things easier. but i dont.

It is SO incredibly frustrating!! I'm with you on that one. I honestly can rarely stay up until 10 on Monday nights to finish an episode- so yeah, I always watched it on Hulu. Definitely super annoying!!